Restauratour: A Family Affair at Happy Joe’s Cafez
The colorful, stimulating interior of Happy Joe’s Cafez targets the small set and their parents.
By Lisa Bertagnoli, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 4/1/2006
 Take an online tour of Happy Joe’s Cafez. |
Kids waiting for their meal at Happy Joe’s Cafez in Rockford, Ill., don’t need crayons to keep them occupied. The restaurant’s interior has enough to look at to keep even the squirmiest child happy.
A chandelier that’s a tangled confection of wire and red and white light bulbs hangs in the entryway. The walls are painted a vivid pizza-sauce red and lime green. Dozens of decorative items, ranging from game boards and album covers to small paintings and clocks, cover the walls. Curtains printed with oversize balloons hang in two corners of the restaurant, shielding circular, semiprivate dining areas from prying eyes.
With such a stimulating interior, it’s hardly surprising that the architect, Rob Wilson, and the interior designer, Michelle Blunk, both are parents of children under 12. Larry Whitty, president of Happy Joe’s, required that the principals on the project be parents of young children. It turned out to be a good call: “They nailed it,” Whitty says of Wilson and Blunk’s work.
Right Move, Wrong Look
The redesign process started in 2001, the result of a bit of navel-gazing, says Whitty. “We were looking at the chain and saying, how do you take a 29-year-old company... where do you go?” Whitty recalls. Pizza, he adds, is a tough segment, especially for an established sit-down chain. “We targeted putting butts in seats,” Whitty says. To attract more dine-in guests and expand into big-box suburban locations, the company repositioned Happy Joe’s Pizza & Ice Cream into Happy Joe’s Cafez, which has an average unit size of 4,000 square feet.
Market research and meetings with consultants and franchisees led to the 2002 renovation of a location in Bettendorf, Iowa, the chain’s headquarters. But the interior package of gray, rust and light green “was too corporate,” Whitty says. “We realized it was the wrong decor.”
Franchisees also balked at the new look, calling it too urban.
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“The change was difficult for everyone,” Whitty says. “We did so much, so fast and so dramatically...it released an interesting wave of emotions.”
The chain switched to a brighter palette of orange-tinged red and lime green. By 2004, it had
remodeled five additional restaurants, all of which showed positive sales results. The next step was creating a freestanding prototype, which Whitty says is necessary for the chain to open in lifestyle malls and other big-box arenas.
At this step, Whitty enlisted the services of Wilson and Blunk. Whitty wanted the Cafez design to depart from Happy Joe’s original Roaring ’20s theme. “He wanted something new and fresh,” Wilson says.
Blunk, who was responsible for the interior decoration, says she thought of her own children, who are 9, 6 and 3, when choosing the elements: “I thought, what makes me want to visit a restaurant?” Her answer: “Stuff to look at, when they’ve already colored everything in sight.”
Game boards, album covers, small flower paintings and other wall decorations give kids something to look at while they wait for their food. A train that runs on a track above the dining area—the only carryover decor from the old interior—also keeps kids entertained. Balloon-printed curtains, hung from the ceiling, enclose two private dining areas, while a “pen” and neighboring arcade host children’s birthday parties.
Room for Improvement
According to Happy Joe’s, sales are on track with expectations at the Rockford location, but the company won’t release exact sales information. And on weekends, lines are so long that the chain had to invest in a pager system to accommodate waiting guests.
Still, Whitty wants to make some improvements in the design, which could reduce the cost by 20 percent. At just over 5,700 square feet, the Rockford location is about 1,000 square feet bigger than ideal. Booths are now 5 feet 10 inches on center; they should be 6 feet on center for comfort’s sake. The lower part of walls, below chair-rail level, needs to be a more durable material, perhaps vinyl. And an outdoor patio, with a complicated architectural overhang, “is overdesigned,” Whitty says: “We could offer the same ambience for $15,000 less.”
Whitty has already made some changes. A corner filled with low, soft couches and chairs has been eliminated because the coffeehouse look “just didn’t fit with families,” he says. The space will be used to add 16 seats. Some design elements are still in the trial stage, for instance, the six flat-screen TVs, which play news during the day and cartoons in the evening.
Changes aside, Whitty is confident enough of Happy Joe’s Cafez to convert existing units into the Cafez concept and to plan expansion into the Detroit and Madison, Wis., markets.
“I can’t wait to build the next one,” he says.
Menu Sampler
Breakfast
Omelet Pizza: pan-style crust with customer’s own egg creation on top; Little Joe, $4.99; small, $9.99; medium, $13.99; large, $17.99Salad
Chipotle Chicken Salad: chicken, special blend of cheeses, tomatoes, jalapeño bacon, flame-roasted corn and black beans, topped with tortilla chips, chipotle dressing and a wedge of lime, $7.49Pizza
Taco Joe: refried beans, taco-seasoned beef and sausage topped with fresh lettuce, tomatoes and taco chips, served with Spicey Joe’s taco sauce; Little Joe, $5.74; small, $10.84; medium, $14.24; large, $18.49Dessert
5-Spoon Cookies ’N Cream Sundae: hot fudge and five scoops of cookies-and-cream ice cream topped with more hot fudge, whipped topping and a cherry, $5.99
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